Literary Birthday – 16 March – Sully Prudhomme

Sully Prudhomme was born 16 March 1839, and died 6 September 1907.

Sully Prudhomme Quote

1. The great are only great because we are on our knees. Let us rise up.
2. I feel the greatest joy and pride, and I rejoice at the thought that the honour of so high a distinction disputed by writers whom I placed above me will be reflected on my country, to which I owe all that this honour rewards in my works.
3. I will come to a solution about the problem of time. When the infinite shows a hem of its garment, it casts its immense shadow over the problem; Then we grope, but it is a lost effort.
4. Friendship makes one love life, love gives taste to death.
5. Do not think, my friend, that man is capable of feeling as much happiness as he can conceive; There is less force in desire and imagination than in sensibility.
6. When one has delved into a philosophical problem, one must, somehow, step back like a painter in front of the picture and look at what he has produced.

Sully Prudhomme was a French poet and essayist. He was a leading member of the Parnassian movement, which sought to restore elegance, balance, and aesthetic standards to poetry, in reaction to the excesses of Romanticism. Prudhomme’s poetry combined a Parnassian regard for formal perfection with an interest in science and philosophy. He won the first Nobel Prize in Literature in 1901. He was elected to the French Academy in 1881. According to the Swedish Academy, his elevated poetry fit in Alfred Nobel’s formulation about works in an ideal direction.

Source for Image: Unknown, restored by Jebulon, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Sully_Prudhomme,_Ren%C3%A9-Fran%C3%A7ois-Armand,_BNF_Gallica.jpg
Source for quotes: Wikiquote

by Amanda Patterson

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